Life without you
by TheTardiswhip
Summary: Jack's life after CoE. Series of one shots showings Jack's life after loosing the love of his life.
1. A grave side speech

3006

Jack Harkenss walked to the place where the man who stole his heart had been resting for almost a thousand years. He placed the flowers that he had been caring on the ground and traced the name in the gravestone with his fingers. He stood there for a few minutes thinking about all the memories, the ones that he will never forget, and not only because he promised but because he wasn't able to. After a while he opened his mouth.

"Hey it's me" he started "sorry it's been so long but I've been busy, but I needed to come today. Don't know if you remember but today would be the thousand anniversary of the first time we" he paused looking for the right word "slept together. A thousand years since you kissed me for the first time, since I felt those soft lips on mine, since we said 'just this once', I thought that it would be just a for comfort, that I wouldn't develop feelings and I think you thought the same thing, god! we were so wrong" he let out a little chuckle.

"Gwen once asked me, long after I lost you,why did your death still affected me? She said that we'd only been together for about three years and she did not understand why after all that time I was still mooring you. I said that those may just be three years, but they were the three best years of my fucking life. I have never been happier than with you, I've never felt safer than in your arms, I've never been more jealous than when a random girl or guy flirted with you. I have never felt so excited and nervous like when I picked you up for our first official date" he was having trouble holding back the tears .

"I know that you didn't necessarily feel like I loved you and that you sometimes you felt like you were a second choice and I had feelings for Gwen or any other" this last thought made him sick "and I take full responsibility for that and it one of my biggest regrets. I thought that if I was distant, I wouldn't fall in love and it wouldn't.,,it wouldn't " he took a big breath " it wouldn't hurt once the inevitable happened, and I know it's a sorry excuse for a justification especially when it didn't work. I feel in love and look at me, nine hundred and ninety three years and it's still hurts"

"I would give anything to have you in my arms again, to taste your coffee again, to kiss you again. If I woke up tomorrow in your bed in that old apartment of yours with you in my arms,the first thing I'd do is tell you that I love you and I would dedicate the rest of time to show you" he wiped his tears with his coat slave " I love you Jones,Ianto Jones" and with those words he walked away his coat, that Ianto loved so much, floating in the wind


	2. I love you but my heart is taken

"Happy anniversary" Jack looked at the woman sitting in front of him, as he poured her some wine. He had been dating this woman for two years Pand he was happy for the first time in almost five centuries. She was quite beautiful she had brown skin and eyes and beautiful black hear. She worked for the International commission for extraterrestrial affairs the ICEA. And had met Jack in a conference, where they hit it off and not long after started seeing each other.

"So how are things going at top of the food chain" he asked jokingly

"Jack you know that we are not the top, we answer to the shadow proclamation" she corrected

"I know but on earth you are" Jack said " but still I wanna know all the gossip"

They had a nice meal and conversation. Talked about aliens affairs, Romantic entanglements at each other's offices and had an interesting discussion about what the ICEA was doing and jack was not completely on board with.

"I know, but I lived the first contact,and I saw the evolution of extraterrestrial relations and the ICEA is taking like five steps backward" defended Jack.

"But this species is are very hard to deal with" she answer

"I'm only saying that strategy will not work they have tried it in the past"

"We can deal with this "

"Trust me if you give them what they want. They will only come back for more, and when it's beyond the limits of what humanity is able to offer then" he stopped and swallowed, as he relieved some traumatic experiences "someone is going to lose everything " he finished his sentences with tears in his eyes.

"Sorry I didn't know" she apologise and changed the subject, but after a while she said.

"Jack I know you have lived a long time, and I know you probably have had more meaningful relationships than ours. But you are an extraordinary man and I love you"

"I love you too" he answered, because is easy to say those words when you don't have a heart. And his heart had dyed in the XXI century along with a young welsh man who love coffee.


	3. How to live without them

Jack sat down on the couch, he was in shock. Rhys Williams, husband of a really old friend of his, died peacefully in his sleep. He knew the day was coming where Gwen would die too, a day where no one from that time was left. Gwen and Rhys were his closest friends, but in a not distent feature he would be alone, Gwen sort of understood his sadness at least she never questioned it, now he would be left to mourn the love of his life, with no one who new him.

"Hey how are you holding up?" he asked the 87 year old widow standing in her kitchen, as he hugged her warmly.

" well you know" Jack knew " is just that waking up one day, and the man who had woken up with you for the last sixty years didn't" and she started sobbing, after a wile she looked up and asked "how do you do it?"

"Do what?" The immortal ask.

" Live with out...him" she said and Jack knew who she was talking about and his heart sank. Gwen wanted advice, she wanted to know how to cope with loosing the person that own her heart. But he did not know, he did not cope, after all of those years it still hurt, when ever he thought about Ianto Jones. How could he say everything was going to be okey when after more than fifty years he hasn't ben okey.

"You remember them with a smile, be happy it happened, and most importantly don't beat yourself up fo all the times you fucked up, they don't mater anymore" Jack was talking to Gwen, but also himself he knew that there was no point in beating himself up about neglecting Ianto, not saying 'I love you'.

"Yeah" she sighed "I just did it a lot. Flirting with you, lying about Torchwood, sleeping with Owen"

"I know, but take it from me, I really fucked up in my relationship with Ianto, I never said how I really felt, I made him feel like a second choice, I killed him I could bluff alone he could be safe at the wear house , And I spent most of the past few decades regretting and Beat my self and it feels shit"

Gwen looked up, her white hair messy, her eyes were red and her face was stained with tears. As she heard the door open and she saw her twenty year old granddaughter, Katy, came to the kitchen. Katy said hallo to Jack and went to hug her grandma.

At the memorial service, Jack watch Gwen, her children and grandchildren say a few words about the late Rhys walked up on to say something.

"Gwen and Rhys were very good friends of my father, I saw Rhys as an uncle" he said, because he couldn't say he was imortal" my dad usted to say that he has one of the bravest men he knew, and every act of bravery he ever did was selfless and out of love, he told me about the time he took a bullet for Gwen. When I lost my boyfriend ten years ago, he was a friend and a shoulder to cry on. Gwen yesterday you asked me how to deal with the death of the love of the love of your life. You can never get over it, but you can honour his memory, if you see a rugby match don't turn it off, because it reminds you of him, Watch it with fondest. Every time he slips into your mind, try and smile. Be glad and grateful for all that moments he was there for you. And remember you have your children and grandchildren and me, you will never be alone"


	4. Wanting closure- part 1: family

2014

Rhiannon, was chopping vegetables for dinner, Misha was at ballet and David at futbol, they will not be home for hours but she liked to have dinner ready and then relax, she was listening to the news , she was lost in though when the doorbell rang. So she made her way to the door

"Hello can i help you?"she asked, to the gorgeous man standing in front of her in a long forty's military coat

"Hi, I'm looking for Rhiannon Davis" he looked as if he was about to cry.

" that's me"

"Sorry, I shouldn't have come" as he turned to walk away,

"Wait" she said " who ever you are you look like you could use a drink"

She invited him inside, took a couple of glasses and a bottle of whiskey and sat down the man sat down beside her.

"So who are you then?" She asked with her thick welsh accent, that brought a lump into the mans throat.

"I'm captain Jack Harkness, former líder of Torchwood three" he took a deep breath as if the next thing was difficult for him to say" I was your brothers... boss"

Rhiannon remembered one of the last conversations with her brother, where he confessed he was sleeping with his boss.

"I'm aware Ianto told you about our relationship" he started " and I want to apologise for not going to the funeral, or helped packing up his flat, it just that I loved your brother and I never told him and I couldn't face the fact that he was actually gone and for the first month I pretended he had just broke up with me and that someday he and I were going to get back together" he looked up from his drink " I wanted you to know that Ianto Jones was the best thing that ever happened to me and loosing him was the worst. He was the" he took a sip " love of my life".

For a while Rhiannon was silent, she was angry; after her brother died she got super depressed, it had been a hard work closing that wound. And now five fucking years later this man comes and reopens it. And it hurt so bad again.

Jack broke the silence. "I know I shouldn't have come here, I probably opening wounds. But I cannot keep living in denial, I'm dying inside, I just need some closure, and the best way to do that, is to help the people he love, not leaving his memory behind. "

" can I ask you a question? They wouldn't tell me how he died, they said that it was top secret. But I need to know. You know what is like not knowing how he died? Is the thing that still keeps me at night. Please, I won't even tell my husband"

"If I'm going to tell you this I need you to promise two things, yo u can't tell anyone about this" Rhiannon nodded " and you must promise not to judge me, are you sure you're ready for this" But we was mostly talking to him self, he was not ready to it. Rhiannon nodded again.

"Ianto and I work at a top secret organisation protecting earth against alien invasion, he came to me after our branch in Londres fell" he took a deep breath "there is a thing you have to understand,I was born in the fifty first century, I met an extraordinary man, that took me travelling in time and space. Something happened to me, I died. But something happened and I came back to life, and since then I can't die. My friends abandoned me, and I ended up in XIX Cardiff." Rhiannon stayed in silence " The week he died, a alien was threatening ten percent of the children, that was way kids were acting wired. The government was after us because of me. The thing is this species came to earth fifty years ago, and me and some other officials help the government to give them what they wanted. And now they were back in a much bigger scale and the government was trying to cover up what happened. When I found out who they were, I wanted to go and confront them, it, alone. But Ianto insisted on coming with me, to my grates regret of my life, I let him. So we were in the top of themes house, and the alien realised a poison into the air" Jack couldn't go any further with his story he broke down. His mind has reliving the pain.

"To late I breathe the air"

"I take it back okey, I take it all back, but not him"

Rhiannon was processing the fact that his brother was in love with an immortal, fifty first century man and caught aliens. But as this man sitting in her living room, crying an repeating " its all my fault" she accepted the life of her brother and moved in to comfort the man.

" it's not your fault, Ianto knew the dangers, but he decided to put them aside to stand by the person he loved. The only people responsible for his death are the fucking aliens. And I was angry at you 'cause I could see the love in his eyes when he talked about you. I thought you did not care about him. But I understand now."

After a while Jack opened his mouth " he died in my arms, he made me promise I won't forget him. That broke my heart because I could never forget him. He thought he did not mater to me. Because I was emotional distant, because I thought that would hurt less. But it just brought me regret " wiping the tears of his face

"We are home"At that moment Jonny and the kids came in the door " who is he?" He asked as he came in the door.

"This is Jack Harkness" as they both stood up. " he is... was Ianto's Boyfriend"

Jonny's face went red with anger

"Where the fuck were you" he screamed " you did not even showed up to the bloody funeral, Ianto was really important to us, and clearly you don't care about him."

" Don't you dare" said Jack with tears in his eyes" Don't you dare say I don't care about him, Just because I didn't go to a fucking event. And for your information I didn't go the funeral because I trying to kill my self, and for de last five years I've been dead inside"

"Fuck sorry man" Jonny reacted to Jack's explosion " we had no idea"

"Don't worry, sorry I exploded" Jack was back to a calm set of mind " so I really must get going, nice to finally meet you and thanks so much for understanding "

"Are you sure you don't want to stay for dinner" Rhiannon said

"I'd love to, but I agreed to have dinner with an old friend and her family " Jack said politely

" Rhi can I talk to you for a minute" Jonny said walking to the kitchen and his wife follows "don't you go yet Jack "

"What?" Asked Rhiannon

"Do you think that He is the Jack of the package?" Asked Jonny

"Fuck, I forgot about that, definitely, we should give it to him" she answered and walked out of the kitchen.

"Before you go" she said " I want to give you something" she made her way to a chest and toke out a small brown package, wrapped neatly " when we were going through his things we found this berried between old blankets and I think you should have it"

"Thanks" taking the package and walked to the door.

"Promise you'll keep in touch" Rhiannon said as she stood at her doorstep.

"I will"

As Jack was sitting on the bus, Jack examined the package, there was a note on the top that said.

For Captain Jack Harckness.

Don't open until I'm gone


	5. Wanting closure- part 2: the package

Jack didn't felt like going out to dinner that day, meeting his dead boyfriend's family is an emotional draining activity and he did not feel like going to Gwen's for dinner and hearing about yet another funny story about Anwen that he was going to hear on Monday at work anyway. He sent a message to Gwen,making the excuse of some unfinished UNIT reports he had to finished for stared out the window of the bus all the way home daydreaming and remembering, as he reconoced the ice cream place he and Ianto went, or the parking loot they once had gone hunting, or there favourite takeout place, or a place they had sheltered from the rain that one night. A tear finally formed in the corner of his eyes, as the bus passed by the turn that lead to Ianto's.

Jack lived in a dingy and messy little apartment, about a five minutes walk from the new Torchwood hub. He opened the door, dumped his coat on the sofa and walked over to the drinks cabinet and served himself a quite big glass of whisky and presided to down it. Then he took out the package Rhiannon had given him, sat down and stared at it. "Don't open until I've gone". It broke his heart to think that his immortality was haunting Ianto and it was the main obstacle in their relationship. He remembered the speech Ianto made when he was in a coma "I'm just a blip time for you".

He started to unwrap the package with a lot of care to revival a small metal box, hermetically sealed. He opened it with a lot of care, the contents of the box both wormed and broke Jack's heart at the same time. Inside were a bunch of souvenirs of the time together. A stopwatch, a bunch of recipes of dates, the ticket to the movie they saw on their first oficial date, a piece of the coffee machine that Jack broke and lead to their first fight as a couple which lead to amazing makeup sex. And finally two envelopes, one of them had "to Jack" . He served himself another whiskey. And opened the envelope, inside there was a letter, he took a big sip and started reading.

My dear Jack.

If you're reading this I'm probably dead or I have left you, if that is the case Fuck off, I don't know what happened but I know that I wouldn't leave you just over something trivial or a misunderstanding, so I'm guessing you really broke my heart so I'm begging you leave me the fuck alone.

If that is not why you are reading this, I have died. Hope I died saving the world, I hope I died standing by you doing and fighting for what was right. But in the best case scenario I died peacefully on a hospice bed in my late nineties with you by my bedside holding my hand. I'm writing this a day after Owen and Tosh's funeral , I was thinking about this job and how it was almost impossible to have that ideal death. I started thinking about the people I love, about my sister and how at the end I want her to know how I died, she deserves to; About you, about how you become my home, about how I pictured marrying you someday, building a family and how every time I picture my future the only person that I want there with me is you.

I love you Jack. I may never say it, because I'm scared you don't feel the same way about me. Part of me says I'm crazy to think that, you have demonstrated so many times that you care dearly about me, you've said it your self, that you have told me thing that nobody else knows. But sometimes you push me away and I begin to wonder if someone that has lived a thousand lifetimes and will live a thousand more is even able to love.

Sometimes I wonder if you remember me at all centuries from now. If I'll be one of your "had a boyfriend once " stories. That I'll be a name without a face. Or you'll only remember my coffee and forget my name, what I looked like, and I'll just be a guy that worked for you and made extremely good coffee. But the thing that I worry most about is that I do mean something to you. That you'll blame yourself for my death, like you did with Tosh and with Owen. I worry that you will get depressed and kill yourself over and over again, that you won't be open for new relationships, and go and seek revenge. Please don't.

If you did love me, do one thing for me, for yourself. Don't stop yourself from loving again, just because you're afraid that they are going to replace me, believe me, when you lose someone you loved you will always love them, even if you fall in love again. And always be the man I feel in love with, he is a good man.

I'm always going to be in your heart. Your Ianto.

P. S. I put together some photographs, there in the other envelope. One of them is for you eyes ONLY you'll recognise it.

Jack finished reading the letter, between sobs, and drinks. He folded the letter and put it back in the envelope , and opened the other envelope. Jack hold the photographs in his hand and contemplating all the memories in his hand. Passing one after an other, pictures full of love in their eyes, parties, intimate moments, a particular picture caught his eye, it showed the two of them slow dancing. He didn't know that existed, but he remembered that moment, the moment he released he was in love. Jack let out a lough, when he saw the last photograph, he loved how the Welshman dirty mind worked.


	6. The rift reopened

2015

Torchwood was now mostly just weevil hunting and paperwork in the new hub, since Ianto's ghost closed the rift, so now the Torchwood team is just Jack and Gwen. One night Gwen was working late doing paperwork, Rhys was with Anwen visiting hid she was caching up with some work, when she heard a noise she remembered from long ago. She went to investigate and Tosh rift predictor program was blipping on the computer next to her.

"That's imposible" Gwen she knew the rift was closed, Jack did not say how, when question he would always say "an ancient evil, magic pebbles and a sacrifice " with sadness in his voice. She reach into her pocket for her phone "Jack, you have to get here now! Something is not right"

""what have we got?" After a while Jack came in and saw Gwen marvelling at the computer, and came to Join her.

"You smell like you were having a good time" joked Gwen.

"Yeah well," he said "that's impossible"

"Is it possible that it's reopening" She asked

"Don't know I'll say we find out, where is the spike" he asked as he run to the SUV.

"Is in an flat complex just outside of the city" Gwen followed and got into de passenger seat "the site was a pub that disappeared out of nowhere in 2010"

"What was the pub's name" Jack asked curiously

"Mmm" Gwen fumbled with her pda

"What was the fucking pub's name" Jack lashed out

"The house of the dead " Gwen shouted. Jack heart skipped a beat, maybe the rift opened and maybe what closed it, came through the other side. Maybe he will see him again, maybe he will be alive. They got to the site,Jack looked around excitedly but no sign of a sexy man in a suit.

"Jack" Gwen shouted " found something"

Jack run towards Gwen who was crouch down scanning something, we got closer and crouch down an saw a box. His heart broke when he reconised the box "okay let's get back to the hub" he said imposingly hiding his disappointment. At the hub, they looked at the rift monitor, what for years have been a flat line now had predicted spikes for the next two weeks like if someone had pressed play, the rift was open.

Jack spent the next week on the phone with Unit and trying to recruit a new team. At the end he hired a doctor that Martha recommended, Rachel , Andy Davidson, Nataly a tech genius and Eddy an archivist from UNIT. Rhys wanted to join but they desided that Anwen was better of with at least on parent alive. After the first day of all the newbies, Jack and Gwen went to a pub leaving Andy in charge of monitoring the rift.

"Can I ask you something?" asked Gwen sipping her pint.

"Go ahead" Jack said.

"Honestly, when the rift opened you looked disappointed about what came through. Why?"

"Six months after Ianto died" after six years Gwen could still see the pain his eyes when he talk about it " I learned that Syriath an ancient evil from before there was such a thing as time, was using a seonce in a "haunted pub" to come through the rift and destroy humanity by sending people visions of people they had lost and manipulate them. So I got a sort of rift energy boom, and showed up at the seaunce, but Syriath new I was there. She sent me a ghost, Ianto, but he didn't know he was a ghost. So part of me saw this, and I still do as a gift, one last adventure with him " Jack pause a minute to stop himself crying "but she recreated him every last thing about him. At the end he tricked me and sacrificed himself and closed the rift"

"And when it opened you where expected him" Gwen asked knowing Jack

"Yeah, but it was just a ghost" Jack said "but that ghost was soo him he saved the word"

"I guess, that's Ianto a hero" Gwen laugh

"To Ianto" Jack raised a glass "A hero,a good man and my love"


End file.
